Monday, April 13, 2026
| Time | Session | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM | Inside Outside Summit | Sheldon Museum of Art |
| 3:00 – 4:00 PM | Student Promptathon | Kiewit Hall A203 |
| 4:00 – 5:00 PM | Innovation Showcase | Kiewit Hall A203 |
Inside Outside Summit — Entrepreneurs, innovators, and corporate leaders exploring emerging trends in technology and business. Brian Ardinger's independently organized event kicks off Husker AI Days week.
Student Promptathon — "Is It Fake?" AI image competition followed by a project showcase round. Awards for best deception, most innovative project, and best department participation.
Student Innovation Showcase - Learn about the exciting inventions, workflows, and start-up ideas that our students have to share with you.
AI-generated images are better than people think. The "Is It Fake?" competition revealed that even a room full of engaged students struggled to distinguish AI-generated campus scenes from real photos. One image (a classroom scene created in ChatGPT by Team Magicans) fooled nearly every participant. The gap between "obviously fake" and "indistinguishable" has closed faster than most people realize.
Students are already building with AI, not just using it. Both Innovation Showcase projects went well beyond prompting. Euclides built a full desktop application (EER UNL Diary 2.0) that translates a 27-page graduate handbook into a milestone tracking tool for PhD students. Amlan's Weed Vision AI automates agricultural image labeling at 120 images/hour versus 15-22 manually, trained on a 10,000-image dataset collected over 45 days. Shawswati showed the power of AI both in physical AI and robotics but also in productivity in creating her presentation.
The energy was real. About 30 students showed up on a Monday afternoon, formed teams on the spot, and competed with genuine intensity. The voting rounds generated audible reactions in the room.